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Apples and Rice

A sweet dish of steamed rice flavored with spices and served with cooked apples.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Apples and Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rice

  1. Steam the rice in a double boiler with salt, milk, and water until soft, adding more milk or water if necessary.

  2. Flavor the rice with nutmeg, cinnamon, or rose water, and stir in chopped almonds if desired.

  3. Once the rice is soft and has absorbed the liquid, press it into the shape of a bowl.

Cook the apples and serve

  1. Cook the sour apples in a syrup made of equal parts sugar and water until tender.

  2. Carefully remove the apples with a large spoon, place them around the rice, and fill the center with the apples.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Rice + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rice
Softens into a tender mass that holds its shape when pressed into a bowl.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, cooking into the rice for a creamy texture.
Sour apples
Provide tart acidity that contrasts with the sweet syrup and mild rice.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps the apples become glossy and tender.
Almonds
Add crunch and nutty fat to the soft rice.

The step that matters

Pressing the rice into a bowl shape. Rice must be fully soft and have absorbed its liquid before pressing, otherwise it will not hold its shape and may crumble or slump when unmolded.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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